Palace Ladies at Leisure, Copy after Zhou Wenju (active 970 -),Song dynasty, Southern Song period, 1127-1279, Handscroll; ink and traces of pigment on silk, H. 25.7 x W. 177 cm (10 1/8 x 69 11/16 in.), Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Francis H. Burr Memorial Fund

Description

Originally part of a longer scroll copied from a lost work by the Five Dynasties painter Zhou Wenju, this scroll is an important relic of Chinese court figure painting. Executed in the "baimiao" or outline mode with touches of color only in their red hair ribbons and lips, the women and children of these intimate scenes are brought vividly to life by the sensitive brushwork of the artist. Additional scrolls preserving the other sections of Zhou Wenju's composition are found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and at Villa I Tatti, Florence. A colophon dated to 1140 and preserved with the Cleveland portion states that this copy of Zhou Wenju's scroll was made for the scholar and critic Zhang Cheng.

 

This art piece has been collected and presented by the Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Shackler Museum, Francis H. Burr Memorial Fund. For more information, please contact to am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu